Caching In by Kristin Butcher Page A

her head in his shoulder.
    A few minutes later, the whole wedding group starts moving away down the path.
    â€œIt’s about time,” Chris mutters as he stuffs his phone into his jeans. “I thought they were never gonna leave.”
    He starts to step away from the tree, but I yank him back.
    â€œNot yet.”
    We wait until all the people have gotten into their cars and the last one has driven away.
    â€œOkay.” I take one last look around to make sure the coast is clear. “Let’s go.”
    The GPS leads us right to the spot where the wedding was.
    â€œThis is it,” I tell Chris. “Now we find the cache.”
    We start looking around. The area is mostly grass and graves, though there are a couple of trees and a flower bed too.
    Chris starts tromping through the flowers, using his foot to search between the plants.
    â€œTake it easy!” I tell him. “We don’t want to wreck the place. Besides, the cache has to be in plain sight.”
    â€œWhatever,” he mumbles, but he stops kicking the flowers. After a while he says, “Hey, Eric. Are you sure this is the spot? I don’t see a freakin’ thing that looks like a cache.”
    I check the GPS again. “This is it, man.”
    He frowns. “Maybe you copied the coordinates down wrong.”
    I shake my head. “I didn’t.”
    But I begin to doubt myself. I was excited when I saw the new cache listing on the website this morning. I called Chris right away. In my rush to get searching, I could have screwed up the numbers.
    â€œSo where is it?” Chris demands.
    I do another scan of the area. Headstone, headstone, headstone, bouquet. I walk over to the bouquet. I don’t know why. It couldn’t possibly be the cache. But there is nowhere else to look.
    I kneel down for a closer look. It’s just a bunch of flowers and ribbons. That’s all. Wait a second. Something is stuffed in the middle of the flowers. It’s yellow and white, like the flowers, so it’s a wonder I even noticed it. I pull it out.
    It’s a small cardboard box—the kind medicine comes in, but it’s been painted. And there’s printing on one side. CACHE.
    â€œI got it!” I holler, though Chris is now standing right beside me.
    â€œOpen it up,” he says.
    â€œIt doesn’t feel like there’s anything inside.”
    â€œQuit talkin’ and open the stupid thing!” Like I said before, Chris is not real patient.
    I open the flap and tip the box. Out slides an egg.
    Chris scowls. “That’s it? That’s all that’s in there?” He grabs the box from me, shakes it and looks inside. “So where’s the log? There’s supposed to be a log. How can we prove we’re the first ones to find the cache if there’s no log?”
    â€œSign our names on the box and write down the date and time,” I suggest.
    He fishes a pen from his pocket, but I can tell he’s ticked off. Chris believes in playing by the rules. And the rules say there’s supposed to be a log. When he’s finished, he puts out his hand for the egg. I don’t give it to him. Instead, I shake it and hold it up to my eye.
    â€œIt’s been hollowed out,” I say. “See the hole?”
    â€œSo what? Just put it back in the cache, and let’s get out of here.”
    â€œThere’s something inside.”
    Suddenly, Chris is interested. “What?”
    â€œI don’t know. But whatever it is, it went in through that little hole.” I shake the egg again. “There’s no way it’s coming back out though.”
    Chris sticks out his hand. “Let me see that. I can get it out.”
    I pass him the egg.
    He brings his eye to the hole. “Yup. There’s something in there, all right.”
    â€œHow are you going to get it out?”
    â€œEasy,” he says. Then he smacks the egg against the headstone.

Chapter Two
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